The Back-steps of Eternity
by Rabidus Femina
Summary: ::crosses fingers:: This is a cross-over between GW and The Vampire Chronicles in which Duo meets two very interesting people while drowning his sorrows one night... Rated for drinking, implied shonen ai, and the usual blood. Enjoy.


The Back-steps of Eternity  
  
by Rabidus Femina  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any major characters I am using. Yes, I realize this is very weird. It was written a long while ago on a TVC splurge. Gomen! ^^; I'm considering doing more with this…but frankly, since Anne Rice got the TVC section taken down, I've been afraid to post this.  
  
  
  
Date: November 2, A.C. 195  
  
Duo sat outside the late-night bar on the back doorstep. He was hunched over in misery and clutched a small shot-glass filled with orange juice with a small amount of vodka mixed in. Ah, the exclusively-American Screwdriver. Duo wasn't there to get drunk, he was just...  
  
Why was he there? Because it was the stereotypical place to go when you're down? Because to be drunk is to be immune from pain?  
  
No, Duo reasoned, The pain will still be there; it will just wait to make itself known in the morning. He had left the circus where Trowa and Heero were staying an hour ago. He had wandered the city for a while before entering the bar at dusk. He had been upset and angry. Why? Because Heero had been his heartless, arrogant self again. He had tried to self-destruct. But, of course, Heero had somehow survived and was now recuperating at Trowa's place. Duo took another sip of his drink and pursed his lips against its bitterness. He didn't actually like Screwdrivers, but it was the only drink he knew of from experience. He hung his head and angrily kicked a rock across the dark alley with a growl. He couldn't believe Heero had said what he had.  
  
" 'Life comes cheap; especially mine,' " Duo quoted to himself. "I swear, that guy has no compassion, and that's what makes people human." A pause. "Huh, my theorem is proven." Duo rested his hand holding the drink on his knee and rubbed his forehead. Because he had been scowling for the past few hours, and also the liquor, his muscles were tight and bunched up. Duo tried to massage the tenseness away and gave up, taking a sip of his drink. He pulled his baseball cap over his eyes and his jacket's collar tighter around his frozen neck. He was still ticked at the barkeep. The guy had said that one had to be eighteen to buy a drink. He knew that, but bought a drink with a bit of persuasion, but what he had asked was if could he sit there out of the cold. The barkeep wouldn't even abide by that.  
  
Jerk. Sending a guy out into the rain!  
  
'A drunk fifteen-year-old,' Duo thought sarcastically, 'now there's something you don't see every day.' He sat there on the cold, concrete step for a few minutes longer before letting his tough facade crumble. He leaned forward and sniffled into his shot-glass. He was crying hot, angry tears in a few seconds time.  
  
Why, he thought. Why did it have to be this way? The pilots and their allies were just kids, yet they had more worries and burdens at this point in their lives than most people had in a lifetime.  
  
Because life sucks, that's why, Duo mused bitterly. Despite himself, he took one last sip of his drink before wiping his tears on his sleeve. He couldn't cry; boys did not cry. Suddenly, he felt as if he was being watched. He looked up, but he saw no one. It's not like he had expected to see anyone, it was just reflexes, hopefully. He scanned the dark recesses of the alley for a moment, then settled down with his unwanted glass and gave one last look around. He had felt this presence. Yet the presence had dissipated as soon as he had lifted his head...but maybe that was just because of the vertigo that overcame his liquor-fuzzed senses.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Louis  
  
I could scarcely believe it when the boy's head shot up. He had felt our presence — a mortal had felt my presence. And what a beautiful mortal he was. Like a Botticelli angel. His chestnut hair fell past his shoulders, bound in an unruly braid. How I wanted to let the dark waves fall free, to let them brush against my cheek as I fed. His violet eyes, a rarity in human and vampire, were clouded; either from sorrow or drink was anyone's guess. I wanted to get to know the boy, like in the old days before the kill, but my vampire nature quelled my feelings. He was a mortal; my prey. Yet he was so dismal, how could I? Claudia touched my elbow to bring my attention to her. Her eyes were questioning and accusing at the same time.  
  
"It is not my fault he sensed us, Claudia," I said quietly. But it was. I had forgotten myself as I quested to find his reason for getting smashed, as they say, in a dark alley at midnight. It was probably a very good one. Claudia irately brushed a lock of her silken, blonde hair from her cheek. A cold, white cheek. I had already fed that night; quite well, in fact, so my hunger did not haze my view of the male youth who looked so sad.  
  
Claudia had not. I could see that thirst-that craving-eating at her reason, it shone in her eyes. That gnawing insanity that ate nightly at our person until it was quelled with rich, warm blood. I scowled at her, yet she just stared at me, begging, like a mortal child for sweet chocolate. I looked away from her haunting, green eyes. I went to step out of the shadows, yet Claudia pulled me back.  
  
"What are you doing?!" She hissed, the hunger making her voice quaver with the effort to control it. "He will see us and run, and I cannot catch him, for I am weak with thirst. I will wither and he will run. Is that what you want? Answer me, Louis." She was slipping, I realized. I took her radiant, icy hand and brought it to my lips in comfort.  
  
"No, ma petite, that is not what I want." I pulled her into an embrace, trying to keep her from rushing out prematurely, yet I still felt her tenseness through her jacket. She was ravenous. Silently I relented, releasing her from my grip, walking quickly in front and to the side of the boy. He hadn't sensed us again...yet. As I sat on his left, Claudia sat on his right, where the jugular is most accessible, eyeing his neck with almost unsettling longing. She was about his age, I realized then. They might very well have been peers, had he been born then; had I not met her that night....  
  
I watched the boy as he gazed into the street lamp. In his thoughts he begged for peace, for a moment of no worries in sluggish, detached fragments of thought. Yet I could not consent, my thirst was quenched. I spied Claudia watching the boy predatorily, her tongue flicking out to moisten her lower lip. I shook my head. She was almost too greedy for blood sometimes. She was only one hundred or so years old. A ripple in the pond compared to my good eight hundred or more. She was so innocent, so fresh. She looked to the boy, then back to me. I frowned. Not yet. She appeared crestfallen, then went back to watching the boy. The boy turned in my direction, just a flex of a stiff neck, yelped and saved the fragile glass in his hand from an untimely demise with a quick save. He settled back down, and looked at me with those same, clouded eyes, which were wider, I must say. I delicately took the glass from his lax hand and set it on the pavement next to the step where we sat.  
  
"You really should not drink at your age, it's bad for you." He looked at me with unfocused, uncaring eyes and pouted.  
  
"Like you care if I get hurt or not, Mr. ...."  
  
"Louis Pointe du Lac, but just Louis, please. And I do care." The boy offered me a hand.  
  
"Duo Maxwell, Shinigami, at your service." Claudia was twitching with her want. She watched this mortal give me his hand and my refusal to bite it. She looked as if her head was swimming.  
  
"And I," she began, brushing a lock of hair off Duo's shoulder, which recoiled from this sudden touch as she continued, "...am Claudia. The pleasure is mine." Duo looked to me uneasily as Claudia smiled. I sighed. Why was he so sad? I wished he would be on his way, my hunger was beginning to knot up my heart up again...  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Duo  
  
I tell you, these two were strange. The girl, Claudia seemed a bit, to put it politely, loopy. Louis seemed to be the gentleman of a by-gone era. His bearing, speech--everything pointed to a richness I couldn't comprehend. Either that or I proved to be lacking in the holding-liquor department. But I just couldn't be drunk. Taking a few sips of vodka didn't smash you. Or did it? I wouldn't know, I've never really drank before. No matter. They actually cared. They didn't just silence me with a 'Shut up, Duo.' or 'Idiot,' like Heero did. Heero... I wondered how he was. He probably didn't care about me, his best friend. Louis looked at me then, and his eyes were so emotional, I began to sniffle.  
  
No, boys don't cry! Despite my brain's ranting, I began to sob. Soon, I was choking on my tears, sputtering my whole story with a drunken slur. Louis smiled empathetically and Claudia reached to rub my back, but Louis smacked her hand. Claudia got up and stormed away. Louis just shook his head.  
  
"Don't worry over Claudia," he sighed, "she can take care of herself." About half-an-hour later, she, surprisingly, stepped out the back door of the bar, banging our heads with it. She was a bit rosier and had a small smile on her round face. She sat back down, and didn't touch or gaze at me again. I leaned back on my elbows, stretching cat-like. She was a child with an adult's mind, I could see that. Claudia turned away slightly and I smiled. She seemed like a nice, if strange, girl. She, Louis, and I talked for a few hours at our leisure to the sounds of the night.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Claudia  
  
My god, this boy was so appetizing-looking. His cheeks were rouged with the blood underneath, and the light from the overheard lamp gave his hair a bronze halo. He was, as I had heard Louis say under his breath once, like a Botticelli angel. Louis is not the best teacher, but he has taught me of the great mortal artists. This boy beside me resembles one of Botticelli's cherubs perfectly. Louis, though he may say so, is not my father. In public, my manner is very un-daughter like. I speak to him as if he is my peer or, better yet, my companion. It seems strange to the outside observer; a young girl, not yet six-fresh, young, with a young man, of age and with a suave bearing that says quite blatantly that he knows more than meets the eye. We have no age, actually, when you think about it. Immortality's like that. But back to Duo. As I sat down, even though I had just fed, my hunger stirred a bit, and I sighed. Duo quirked his eyebrow at me. I do believe I startled him. A six year old is not as I am, usually....well, he will find out just how unusual I am....very soon....the hunger, it is eating at me....  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Duo tossed and turned, unable to sleep. His mind kept slipping back to the incident two days ago. She had ran after him, shrinking back from the harsh lamp-light, beckoning to him, a cute little girl, an innocent angel with a strange demeanor. He got a little worried, though, lowered her gaze to his neck and grabbed his wrist. She had smiled, revealing two, short fangs. She had held him fast as she had bit him, practically jerking him to the ground. He had gasped when she drank deeper, sharing her thoughts and feelings of the experience with him. He had found it enthralling, even sensual, it was so completely twisted. Louis, his own hunger flaring up, had fed on him, too. That's when his body reacted. Lust, pain, contentment, fear, all swirling and melding into one, amazing experience.  
  
He touched the two, minuscule puncture holes on his neck. A shiver shot down his spine as he thought back on the whole ordeal. Actually, it wasn't an ordeal, per se, but it had had an adverse effect on him. He couldn't stop thinking of her...and him. He couldn't concentrate. I need a walk...it's late, but what do I care?  
  
He bundled himself up, and walked out into the cold, November night air, the pricks of the wind making his eyes sting. He slitted them against it. He began meandering about the colony, feeling a bit better. Soon, though, he found himself the witness of two figures, one male, black hair dancing on the wind, waiting patiently; one female, young, cunning, deceptive- feeding. On a young man who was alone on this late, late evening. Duo blinked, surprised, his neck wounds flaring up in a twinge of pain. I wish you the best...for what it's worth... Then he sighed and pulled his collar tighter around his neck and walked down the street, looking at nothing in particular. He heaved a sigh, his breath misting out before his chilled face, and mumbled, also to no one in particular, "The God of Death, fixated with Merciful Death...how strange it all is....how very, very strange...." 


End file.
